What Influence Can a Poster Have?

Film posters are a very important way of advertising films. They are mainly displayed in popular places, over cities and  on the sides of buses and buildings. Vary rarely will you see a poster advertising a short film. It's usually Hollywood films with a large advertising budget that use this money for large poster campaigns.

Posters are made to be eye-catching and fairly to the point. If the advertisers want to indicate that it's an action movie, then the audience who seeks out action films want to know this and will expect to see cliches, like gun, explosions and fast cars... Maybe a tank if they're lucky. This kind of thing if made to lure and hence influence people to see the film.

Another way posters can influence people into watching it is through quotes. Usually along the bottom of a poster you'll find a quote with typical text within it, such as "a must see!" Or "you can't miss it!" This will commonly be accompanied by a rating out of 5, typically no lower than 4 stars, as they want to make you think it's a good film. Seeing these and assuming they're from loyal and totally un-bribed sources should theoretically convince audience members that this is a fantastic film, making them want to see it. 

-RM (Edited and added to by BW)